Three ways to handle mail without creating a full mailbox, and one of them is usually a mistake.
Forwarders
Send mail arriving at one address on to another. No mailbox, no storage, nothing to log into. Ideal for info@ going to a person, or a role address to several people.
One caveat: forwarding to a large provider can affect delivery, because you are relaying mail that was sent to you and modern authentication makes that look suspicious. If a lot of forwarded mail is disappearing, that is why, and a real mailbox is the more reliable answer.
Aliases
Effectively the same thing on the same server – several addresses arriving in one mailbox. Useful for sales@, orders@ and enquiries@ all landing in one place.
Catch-all: usually a mistake
A catch-all accepts mail to any address at your domain, including ones that do not exist. It sounds helpful and creates two real problems:
- You receive every typo and every spam guess. Spammers send to common names at every domain, and a catch-all accepts all of it.
- You never find out about mistakes. With a catch-all off, a message to a misspelt address bounces and the sender knows to try again. With it on, it silently lands somewhere nobody reads.
We would generally suggest setting unrouted mail to be discarded or bounced, and creating the addresses you actually use.
Plus addressing
Most mail systems allow you to receive at yourname+something@yourdomain, delivered to yourname. Useful for filtering, and for finding out who sold your address on.
